This blog highlights Copyright, Fair Use, Patent, Trademark, Trade Secret and "Open" Movement-related topics—Open Access, Open Data, Open Government, Open Software, Open Science, Open Education—which are explored in the LIS 2184: Intellectual Property and "Open" Movements and LIS 2194: Information Ethics graduate courses I teach at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Trace the past with NY Public Library's Open Access Maps Project; CNet, 4/7/14

"For over 15 years, the Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division at the New York Public Library has been scanning maps from all over the world including those of the Mid-Atlantic United States from 16th to 19th centuries and even topographic maps of Austro-Hungarian empire ranging from 1877 and 1914.

Most notably, the NYPL has scanned more than 10,300 maps from property, zoning, and topographic atlases of New York City dating from 1852 to 1922.

There's also a "diverse collection of more than 1,000 maps of New York City, its boroughs and neighborhoods, dating from 1660 to 1922, which detail transportation, vice, real estate development, urban renewal, industrial development and pollution, political geography among many, many other things," NYPL posted in late March on its blog.

These and many more of the 20,000 cartographic works scanned are now available as high-resolution downloads for anyone who wants to visit their site.

"We believe these maps have no known US copyright restrictions," NYPL posted. "To the extent that some jurisdictions grant NYPL an additional copyright in the digital reproductions of these maps, NYPL is distributing these images under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.""